Usually when engineers think of rolled screws, they think of something that isn't very precise—with lead errors in the neighborhood of 0.01 inch per linear ft. Not any longer. Engineers at Nook Industries have reportedly come up with a way to thread roll screws with a lead error of just 0.0001 inch per linear ft—accuracy that's on the order of more expensive ground screws. The only limitation of the rolling process, engineers say, is that the outer diameter of the thread dictates the maximum diameter on the screw. Nook engineers say the advancement was "the result of better control of the rolling process." The benefits, says Chief Engineer Rick Christyson, are the cost savings (he estimates about one third the cost of a ground screw) and shorter, more reliable delivery schedules. Typical lead times for ground screws are variable, ranging from weeks to even months, says Christyson. Rather than going to head-to-head with ground screws, though, Nook says that it will target the market served by servo-hydraulics, which involves high loads, high speeds, and precision motion. Though the company won't release the new rolled screws until this summer, it's currently Beta-testing them with several customers in the OEM machine market. So far, so good, says Nook.
Our LinkedIn systems and product design engineering group discusses if they are happy with their decision of remaining a technical contributor instead of becoming a manager.
Against a backdrop of mounting product complexity and a need to keep a lid on development costs, companies are recognizing a need to make simulation a more integral part of the design process. In response, vendors in the CAD world are building out CAE functionality as part of their CAD suites while simulation vendors are building tighter integrations to leading CAD tools. Keith Meintjes, Ph.D., Practice Manager, Simulation and Analysis at CIMdata, Inc., joins Design News CAD Editor Beth Stackpole in this radio program to explore the new face of integrated CAD and CAE, how companies are benefitting from this tighter partnership between platforms, and how integrating CAE earlier in the development cycle pays off in optimized product designs.
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